On August 28, 1791, Father Lasuen raised a cross where Santa Cruz Mission was to be founded. On September 25, 1791, it was formally founded. Father Lasuen was not present at the Santa Cruz Mission dedication, and Fathers Salazar and Lopez conducted the founding celebration. However, the Franciscan Fathers from Santa Clara and the commandante of the San Francisco Presidio were there.
Early Years of Santa Cruz Mission
It was a good time for the missions: relationships with the Spanish authorities were good, and older, established locations sent a variety of gifts to start the newest one. Buildings were quickly erected, and the Santa Cruz Mission Indian population grew. Within three months, there were 87 neophytes.Santa Cruz Mission was prosperous in its first few years. After floods, the Fathers moved it further up the hill to a permanent location, the native population grew and the place was very productive. In 1796, Santa Cruz Mission produced 1,200 bushels of grain, 600 bushels of corn and 6 bushels of beans. They also planted vineyards and raised cattle and sheep. Their coastal property extended from Ano Nuevo in the north to the Pajaro River in the south. Native workers made cloth, leather, adobe bricks and roof tiles, and worked as blacksmiths.
The native Ohlone people came to Santa Cruz Mission for work and to attend church, but they were allowed to live in their own nearby villages. By 1796, there were 500 neophytes.
Santa Cruz Mission and Branciforte
In the past, the Franciscans had experienced problems when their missions were too close to a civilian settlement, and they had a law passed that required at least a league of land between a mission and a neighboring town. However, at Santa Cruz, Governor Borica ignored the law and in 1797 established a pueblo named Villa de Branciforte east across the river from Santa Cruz Mission. The Franciscans tried to stop it, but they were not successful.Branciforte was California's first real estate development. Borica asked the Viceroy in Mexico to send healthy, hard-working colonists and promised them neat, white houses, $116 annually for two years and $66 annually for the next three. Each settler was also promised clothing, farm tools and furniture. The community was laid out in an orderly square, and the farm land was one huge field divided into units for each settler. Borica wanted Branciforte to be an eighteenth century welfare state, with races mixed in the way that had been successful in Latin America. Houses were set aside for Indian chiefs. The plan had worked well in Mexico, but it was doomed to failure in California.
The settlers who came to the new pueblo from Guadalajara were criminals who had no intentions of growing their own crops. Branciforte's assistant reported "to take a charitable view of the subject, their absence for a couple of centuries at a distance of a million leagues would prove most beneficial to the province." They stole, and deliberately antagonize the natives. The settlers, who were called Californios, used money to tempt the natives to leave.
Neophytes began to leave Santa Cruz Mission, and a decline began. The neophyte population declined from 500 in 1796 to 300 just two years later. Father Lasuen complained to the Governor in vain, but the Governor simply responded that if there were fewer neophytes, then Santa Cruz Mission needed less land.
The Fathers were unable to retaliate against the pueblo, but they did punish any of their neophytes that they could recover. This action only further accelerated the decline of Santa Cruz Mission. In 1799, a rainstorm damaged the church so badly that it had to be rebuilt.
